Yesterday Phoronix showed proof of Steam's Linux client existence via its Mac OS X launcher that is currently in closed beta, then this morning they showed further signs of Linux support. Since 2008 it was known that Steam and the Source Engine would come to Linux. As an update, they even pointed out the download link for the Steam Linux binary from their store.

(b)
Last time I checked, there was no Linux version of Adobe CS/MS Office/etc. It's hard to buy commercial software for Linux if there's no such thing. Well... at least not the software that most of us need/use.

As you can see, the Linux gaming community has been organized since 1998, at least, and it's been around for some time now.

I think i recall zophar.net hosting emulators for Linux since day one, back in 1996.

Quake, ID's famous fps was the, AFAIK, the first commercial game for Linux, back in 1996. Throughout the years, ID has consciously chosen to use OpenGL as their API of choice, specifically for portability reasons.

There would probably be a vibrant Linux gaming community now days if MS hadn't marketed DX as the next best thing since sliced bread. (and, truth be told, OpenGL was more mature and easy to handle).

So no, we don't think gaming is childish. Everybody likes to murder virtual prostitutes once in a while.

Fun fact: I recently found that WoW has superior network performance (lower pings overall) while running on under Wine. True story.

Fun fact: I recently found that WoW has superior network performance (lower pings overall) while running on under Wine. True story.

You're not the only one. I have about 65ms latency in WoW under Linux+Wine whereas under Windows it's at about 180ms. No idea why, I have applied all the common networking performance enhancing tips and all.

Unfortunately WoW is really crashy on my PC under Linux, probably due to ATi graphics :<